The Moto X 'Quick Capture' camera

One of Motorola's standout features in the Moto X camera is "Quick Capture," which gets you from sleep to shooting in a mere 2 seconds, all with a simple flick of the wrist.

The idea sounds a little silly at first — do you really want to be flipping your phone around? But in actuality, it's pretty simple, and quick.

To launch the camera app, hold the phone and rotate your wrist like you're turning a screwdriver or a doorknob. You don't have to do it too hard or too terribly fast — and you'll get a vibrating confirmation when you've done it right. The camera app fires up, and you're free to start shooting. Works when the phone is on, or when it's asleep.

You also can get to the camera by swiping from the lock screen or from the usual camera icon.

That "Quick Capture" motion in combination with a full-screen shutter button is what enables you to take pictures so quickly from a dead stop, and it works as advertised. You drag up and down to zoom in and out. There are buttons to flip to the front-facing camera and to shoot video. You get 10MP, 16:9 images from the rear camera with 1080p video. The front-facing camera shoots at 2MP.

Slide from the right to enter the gallery.

The rest of the camera app is very simple. Options slide out from the left. You get options for HDR, flash, autofocus — by default, you tap the screen to take a picture; this option lets you touch to focus instead — slow-motion, panorama (no Photosphere, though), Geotagging and shutter sound.

How about a camera button, and a camera-only mode, where you just push the camera button, it starts the app and pressing it again takes a picture. Then when you unlock the screen, you can manage your snapped photos. No fuss, no muss. I feel a repetitive stress injury coming on from waving my arm around all the time like that.

This is exactly how Windows Phone works!!! One press of the camera button, even when the phone is locked or screen is off, and it starts the camera app. A second press of the camera button takes the photo. So simple and no silly flicking of the wrist.

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